Affleck And Paltrow Give `Bounce' Chemistry

November 23, 2000|By Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News.

The last time out, writer-director Don Roos impressed the heck out of everybody with his witty, acidulous reworking of romantic comedy conventions, "The Opposite of Sex." Whether he can pull off a similar miracle with the dramatic love story "Bounce" is the question.

"I wrote `Bounce' literally a month after `The Opposite of Sex' because I just wanted to do a movie without attitude and irony in it," Roos says. "To me, those elements come so naturally, it's kind of cheating. It's like saying, `Try to take what's on screen seriously, but if it doesn't work I'm just kidding.' I wanted to be really exposed up there. You either believe my story and my characters and feel something of what they feel, or it doesn't work at all."

Roos reckons he was greatly aided in the feel-it department by stars Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow. Playing an emotionally remote playboy and the young widow whose husband's death he was inadvertently responsible for, the stars -- former lovers and good friends -- brought a certain emotional availability to the party.

"It worked very well, in terms of the performances, that these people clearly had a history with each other and a chemistry," Roos says. "To watch Ben watching her and to watch Gwyneth watching him was a real pleasure; there was a connection between them that, maybe, they were acting, but it really seemed like a bonus. They had broken up when this movie began, but they were still very close, talked to each other every day. Whoever they end up with, they'll be the best of friends, and it was great to see that."